MiPo Poetry Board Best of 2002

the juniper is a hardy plant 
(12 words Challenge)

She twists Nebraskan
braids into a high coronet

as he puts the chill
of the ocean around her neck

to incubate for later,
infuse with her heat.

He hypnotizes with trust me's;
she whispers, yes, love me

and opens her body to hands
and tongue, cultured gin and pearls

only to wake in a juniper fog -
the empty shape of him held

in a shroud of stiffened sheets,
the last of his warmth for her

lingering in coffee grounds.
Love me love me love me

the parrot chants her mantra
over dinner on a tv-tray.

A soiled dove championed
by black-and-white cowboys,

she'd saddle the horse
but the horse is only coconuts.

Instead she levitates above
sidewalks of gin-soaked rains,

erases the night's submission
inside walls of neon and smoke.

A prickly juniper bush
crouching small and low,

there she can forget where
he put his mother's pearls.

~

Cappadocia by Balloon
(Travel)

my Mediterranean pilot,
you wake me before dawn
with coffee from a copper ibrik,

cardamom-scented, 'black as Hell,
strong as death, and sweet as love’

through the window,
a glimmer in the pink
of salt lake flamingos at Yay Golu

and of the blush of my skin
under your beard as you cover
my body with yours

you are the snake of Yilani Kilise,
a serpent suckling at my nipples

in our lifts and thrusts,
we are the first people of Çatalhöyük
ten-thousand years ago

I dress in a long skirt
and embroidered shawl -
laugh at my false modesty on the drive

a sixty-foot balloon awaits
in blue-and-white stripes,
your odd modern touch

to a surreal landscape carved
by wind, rain, and man
into fairy chimneys and churches

our rattan basket rises towards
snowy volcanic peaks - we are the wind
watching the world turn beneath us

in its monochromatic palette
of wheat-gold fields and ochre soils
broken only by the green of olive trees

I think back to you in nude silhouette,
edged in fragile morning light

as ethereal in that moment
as my memories of you will become